Letters to the editor for March 19, 2017

Sunday

Mar 19, 2017 at 2:01 AM

Freedom from religion, dirty power play and Trump's not bigot

Freedom from religion

This letter is in response to Rep. Dennis Baxley’s guest column, “Protecting free speech in schools” (March 12). In the last paragraph of his screed, he reveals a serious flaw in his own education. He stated, “Without this free religious expression, we are in fact establishing a state-sponsored religion — secular humanism.”

Dennis, my dictionary definition of religion is “the service and worship of God or the supernatural.” Humanism “rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual’s worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.” Humanism is not a religion!

Our public schools must educate our children with factual knowledge, not ideas based on faith in any of the many Gods, most no longer in vogue. The current true-believers in the majority God of our country believe the earth is 10,000 years old. They reject evolution and scientific evidence.

The framers of our secular U.S. Constitution knew we needed a wall between church and state. Public schools should be a place where students have freedom from religion. Stop trying to proselytize them!

Leonard Kleps

Ocala

Power against the people

The Republican effort to aid in the further economic imprisonment of Florida citizens by way of the passage of SB 1238, at the behest of the party’s masters, including Florida Power and Light, is their most recent and most egregious. It is only that the Republicans are confident that the unwashed horde who have been induced to embrace a liar, a cheat, a hypocrite and an adulterer as their champion, can be further stupidified to support this assault that they think they can pull it off.

But paint me a cynic, but I spent 3 1/2 years as a commissioner on the Florida Public Service Commission, watching all manner of deceitful conniving by both legislators and commissioners in their pursuit of happily whoring for FPL.

Consider the essential proposal contained in SB 1238: that the ratepayers — the citizens — be charged the entirety of an investment insuring solely to the benefit of FPL, which will profit 11 percent annually of the amount of the investment, and — shades of the $468 million sweetheart nuclear pre-construction deal — that the ratepayers will absorb the entire cost should the fracking adventure fail. And apparently FPL has already poured $200 million down the exploration hole. Bank on it being insidiously recovered from the ratepayer.

But what else could possibly go wrong? The officers, directors and shareholders of FPL are not only never on the hook for any subsequent failings of the investment, but should they exercise prudent fiscal responsibility, it makes them less money.

And, not to get into the weeds, but who or what gets the benefits of depreciation, federal tax credits, profiteering FPL subsidiaries, ad nauseum?

If the Republicans are capable of selling this pile of ordure to the citizens of the state, then there is little to restrain them from any other economically or socially corrupt disaster.

Nancy Argenziano

Former Florida House and Senate member

Former chair, Florida Public Service Commission

Tallahassee

Trump no bigot

A recent letter writer claimed the rise in anti-Semitism started on Jan. 20 when President Trump was inaugurated. I guess he’s conveniently forgotten all those demonstrations on college campuses and elsewhere against Israel that started during the Obama administration.

Anti-Semites felt the atmosphere was safe to spew their hate now that they had one of their own in the White House. What’s my proof of that — the way Obama treated Israel, and the best proof is the rants of his spiritual advisor, The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, against “Jews and whitey.”

It should also be noted that Europe saw the rise of anti-Semitism, too.

The left has tried to portray Trump as a bigot because he wants to build a wall and do extreme vetting to keep us safe. Guess what, that is his first responsibility — to keep Americans safe. His responsibility is not to worry about the feelings of people from other countries. President Obama and the Democrats are more concerned about future voting blocks than they are about their own citizens.

I have never heard anyone who has worked for Trump call him a racist. Those claims come only from the Democrats.

Jean Gilman

Ocala

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